Spring
I ran into a friend tonight at the grocery store. She had not seen me since I had wept onto her shoulder after my mom’s passing. She gathered me into a tight embrace in the produce section and whispered softly “How are you?” How was I? Truthfully, moments before I had been drifting in circles around the avocados, feeling quite numb and tired and wondering what I was doing. My heart echoed into the holler of my soul. “You in here?” I called to my heart as I turned her question over in my mind. Her authentic concern softened the toughened places and the pain poked through again. Ah, there you are.
My chin trembled ever so slightly as I told her I was doing well. I could tell she saw right through me. She chose to ignore my white lie and said she missed me as she hugged me one more time. We spoke briefly and went our separate ways in the store, but I carried an acute awareness that my grief is still very present.
But then I walked out into all the green.
The trees and flowers all sing of new life. The joy of it pushes against the pain like an inflated balloon trying to get into the sky. I am not sure whether to hold on or let go. I am in this place of tension, trying to hold myself together and trying to heal. — Trying to work my job and do all the things that I think people expect of me — trying to put my house and myself in order so things can feel somewhat normal.
Trying. Trying. I’m so very tired.
I want to let go. What if I am not the flower, but the soil? What if it is not only okay to let go but imperative that I do if I want to find healing? What if my only task is to allow God to have his way in me? Beauty cannot emerge if the soil will not give way. I cannot make anything grow, but I can surrender to the one who creates all things.
Surrender. Breathe.
Perhaps this is where healing is found. I don’t know, but God does. I choose once again to release my grip so that I can be held. This is grace — coming to the end of myself and finding a God who loves me as I am.
Psalm 16:6 ~”The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
Pleasant Places